Many vehicles include vehicle telematics units and vehicle computing and infotainment systems that allow for integration of applications from remote sources, playback of media and content in a vehicle, communication with remote sources, and generally provide a more favorable driver experience. These systems and other vehicle electronic control units (ECU) may use updateable software/firmware components that utilize updates to provide compatibility among components, among other things. Customers may be required to visit the dealer to perform diagnostics and updates on the vehicle computing systems. This may require physically connecting the vehicle to an update system to have the updates installed by the dealer. This allows the dealer to ensure that the most recent modules and versions are installed and allows the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to obtain a snapshot of the current software and firmware versions installed on a vehicle.
Often, a vehicle ECU will only contain a single on-board flash memory, usable to execute instructions, boot, configure the ECU, etc. If this memory is over-written, during an update, the contents thereof cannot be restored. If the update results in an error, the old code or another version of the new code may need to be downloaded before the ECU will be functional again.